These psycho-philosophical arguments like the one of John Ellis are what in evolutionary Psychology is called an explanation based on proximate causes.
Instead, ultimate causes are the physical causes that generate, by natural selection, a mind with such concepts and such phenomenology that is capable of such reasoning. I take evolutionary reasoning because evolution is the only way to link both kinds of philosophical and physical explanations. The first is more important in practical terms, because our phenomenology defines what IS real. Period. But only ultimate causes can illuminate and explain them. [Our phenomenology conform a common, communicable reality among us because it is the product of a common mind, that is a product of a common brain architecture, that is a result of a common brain development program that is a result of a common genetic inheritance] An example of ultimate causes may be the theory of Relativity, statistical mechanics, the fact that we live in a four dimensional universe and our 4d life lines go along a maximum gradient of entropy, and the desplacement along these lines is called time, that is local to each line. Another ultimate cause is the nature of natural selection, how and why a certain aggregate of matter can maintain its internal entropy in his path trough a line of maximum increase of entrophy, and it is by detection computation and acting to avoid dangers and to capture good things. The good and bad entropy must come in identifiable bags in an eternal "videogame". This is a requisite for life. Non avoidable changes of entropy causes mass extinctions. [The maximum gradient of entropy is paradoxically at first sight, the most computable path, that is why life proceed in this direction: http://www.slideshare.net/agcorona1/arrow-of-time-determined-by-computability ] To avoid bad bags, and to capture and make use of these good entrophy bags, the living beings have to compute. The bad bag of winter, when detected as cold beyond a threshold of intensity and duration by some plants, trigger a set of predefined chemical reactions that make leaves to fall in order to avoid energy waste. This is a computation. Each bag has a way of dealing with it. Many bags are other living beings that want to eat you or you want ot eat it. To deal with them you need a primitive short term notion of time. But gazelles and lions act the same way everytime. They do not act different based on conscious evaluations of past events. They may be other human beings and this time you need a more sophisticated notion of time, because persons act different depending on its memory. The humans depend on a complex cronological knowledge, some of it is enhanced and inherited from ancestors. So there is a experiential time and a mytical time. This is just for our survival as individuals and as a working society. This memory, as I said before evolved in the first place for cooperation, to remember cooperators and defectors. In each point of our lines of life in the 4d space we mentally play with the past to deal with the unknown future. We may exist in every point thinking this way. The line of reasoning can be reversed by the anthropic principle: our psichology is the causation of the physical universe, because if our phenomenology does not exist, the universe would´nt exist. There is no way to give pre-eminence to one or the other line of causation. 2012/7/29 Stephen P. King <[email protected]> > On 7/29/2012 2:35 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > > On 28.07.2012 23:43 Stephen P. King said the following: > > On 7/28/2012 4:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote: > > ... > > Now I have found the original paper by McTaggart in Internet: > > http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html > > ... > > > > Dear Evgenii, > > Never would I cast aspersions upon McTaggart, but what he actually > proved was not the "unreality of time"; for Reality is what which is > incontrovertible to all intercommunicating observers. What McTaggart > proved was the non-existance of an observational stance that might > allow all moments of time to be apprehended simultaneously. His work > can be seen as a reiteration of the truth that Einstein was able to > show us with his General theory of Relativity. > > > > Stephen, > > I do not see how Einstein could describe the transition from being to > becoming. Einstein's four-dimensional timespace does not have changes. This > is the reason why Popper has called him once as four-dimensional > Parmenides. > > In Einstein's general theory of relativity, one could after all introduce > the B-series. Yet, the A-series are not there. > > Evgenii > > Dear Evgenii, > > Einstein tried very hard to not describe any becoming whatsoever. But > one recovers the variability of Becoming when one considers such things as > minisuperspace <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minisuperspace>. Basically > one considers the possible initial conditions (or metrics) as generating > different possible universes. But this is problematic itself. The problem > is that we are confusing the transition from state to state with the > ordering of an indexing set. > > > -- > Onward! > > Stephen > > "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." > ~ Francis Bacon > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
